Still manfully battling with his opponents, Nick tried to eject the object, opening his jaws wider in the effort.

The object, which was shaped like a solid pear, instantly expanded, and Nick could not close his jaws.

Again he tried, opening them still wider, and again the pear-shaped object expanded and held them rigid.

Then Nick guessed the truth.

While struggling with might and main to beat these ruffians, he had been made the victim of an infernal instrument but seldom seen in these days, and one of the most agonizing and diabolical devices of man's perverted ingenuity.

The object in Nick's mouth was a "choke pear!"

This vicious instrument of torture dates back to the time of Palioly, the notorious French robber and renegade, when it was very worthily called "the pear of anguish."

It consists of a solid gag, so to speak, yet it is so constructed, with interior springs, that, once thrust into a person's mouth, it expands as fast as the mouth is opened, and rigidly distends the victim's jaws.

The more widely the victim gapes to eject the "choke pear," or to cry out for aid, the larger the hideous object becomes, until torture, suffocation and death speedily ensue.

Had this infernal device been generally available to modern criminals, Nick would have been warned by the significant words he had heard, and would have guarded himself against it.

As it was, however, he had been caught; and in the mouth of any ordinary man the "choke pear" would have been irresistible.

But the muscles of Nick Carter's jaws were like fibers of steel, and the instant he realized his situation he opened his mouth no wider. Instead, while hands and arms were still engaged in the furious conflict with his a.s.sailants, he brought his jaws together as if with superhuman power, and with a force that crushed the infernal device between them, much as if it had been little more than an eggsh.e.l.l.

One of the ruffians heard the snapping crunch, and uttered a cry of amazement.

The cry was echoed by hurried footsteps in the house.

Then a rear door was suddenly thrown open by Rufus Venner, and a flood of light revealed the struggling men, still battling furiously on the pavement.

Nick now had both opponents down, and within another minute he would have had them at his mercy, a fact which Venner instantly perceived.

He sprang nearer, drew his revolver, and dealt the detective a single swinging blow upon the head.

Nick dropped like an ox struck down in the shambles.

The darkness of night was as nothing to the darkness that instantly fell upon him.

CHAPTER VII

A STRATEGIC MOVE.

Nick Carter had a head that was used to hard knocks, and it required more than one to put him down and out for any considerable period.

The great detective recovered consciousness within half an hour after the blow received from Rufus Venner, and he fell to taking the measure of his situation the moment the cobwebs began to clear from his brain.

He found himself bound hand and foot with ropes, and lying upon the floor of a dark room. That he was in the dwelling occupied by the Spanish dancer, Nick had not a doubt.

As his mind became clearer and his eyes accustomed to the darkness, Nick discovered a narrow thread of light some yards away and close to the floor, and presently the sound of lowered voices faintly reached his ears.

"A light in the next room," he said to himself. "Probably the whole gang is out there, sizing up my case, and deciding what to do with me. If they are there, I must get a better look at those two ruffians. I owe them something for their work of to-night, and I always mean to pay such debts.

"One of them was called Dave, and it may have been Dave Kilgore himself.

In which case, by Jove! I was right in thinking that this diamond robbery only masks some deeper and bigger game.

"I wonder if they suspect my ident.i.ty. If not, what sort of a game have they been playing here to-night?"

Nick very quickly measured the various possibilities of the unusual situation.

If the man whose name he had heard was indeed David Kilgore, then Rufus Venner, as well as Cervera, might be in league with the diamond gang, and the pretended robbery only a move made with some secret design.

On the other hand, Venner might be entirely ignorant of Kilgore's ident.i.ty, and without any serious suspicions of Cervera, being himself a blind victim of these notorious criminals.

"If the latter is the case," reasoned Nick, "the gang may stand in fear of me, and perhaps are afraid that I shall foil some scheme they have in operation, or are about to undertake. Then they to-night may have aimed only to discover the extent and nature of my suspicions.

"If that is the case, plainly it will become me to be a little foxy. I will see if I can contrive to overhear anything from out yonder."

Bent upon wriggling nearer the closed door revealed by the thread of light near the floor, Nick quietly turned upon his side and cautiously worked his way over the carpet.

He had covered scarce a yard, however, when the sharp, metallic ring of Cervera's voice fell plainly on his ears.

"Look again, one of you," she curtly commanded. "See if that vagabond has come to himself."

"That's your humble servant!" thought Nick.

He quickly rolled back to his former position on the floor, and prepared to play the fox.

In a moment the door was thrown open, admitting a flood of light, and a man strode into the room and dropped to his knee beside the motionless detective.

"I say!" he harshly growled, shaking Nick roughly by the shoulder.

"Brace up, you dog! Brace up, d'ye hear?"

Nick groaned deeply, then slowly opened his eyes.

"Oh, my head--my poor head!" he muttered, like one dazed and in pain.

"Your poor head, eh?" sneered the other. "You're dead lucky to have a head left you. Pull yourself together, do you hear?"

"Let me be! Where am I?"

"You'll soon find out where you are. Sit up here!"

"What do you say?" cried Venner, from the next room. "Has he come to?"

The man at Nick's side turned his head to reply, and Nick then obtained a clear view of his profile.